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Conspiracy believers in the USA: The QAnon movement also has supporters in Germany
Photo: Dario Lopez-MIlls / AP
Website administrator Ron Watkins, linked to the far-right conspiracy movement QAnon, has announced his candidacy for the US Congress.
In the next year's elections for the House of Representatives in Arizona, Watkins said he would run for the Republican Party via the Telegram messenger service.
The seat he wants to apply for is currently held by Tom O'Halleran, a Democratic politician who used to represent the Republicans.
It is unclear whether Ron Watkins currently lives in Arizona himself.
Ron Watkins is an avowed supporter of former President Donald Trump.
"President Trump's election was stolen - not just in Arizona, but in other states as well," he told Telegram.
"We have to take this fight to Washington, DC to vote out all the filthy Democrats who stole our republic."
To this day, Donald Trump has not recognized his electoral defeat by Joe Biden.
The 75-year-old continues to spread the false claim that he was deprived of a second term through massive electoral fraud.
The controversial ex-president, who is still very popular with the party base, repeatedly flirts publicly with a possible candidacy in the 2024 presidential election.
Ron Watkins and his father Jim became known on the Internet as operators of the 8chan imageboard and its successor platform 8kun.
Since 2017, bizarre conspiracy stories have been spread in the forums under the pseudonym "Q".
Over the years, the so-called QAnon movement had developed from this, which has hundreds of thousands of followers in the USA to this day.
Some connoisseurs of the scene are convinced that Ron and Jim Watkins know who was behind "Q".
It is also considered plausible that both of them could have written "Q" postings themselves.
Ron and Jim Watkins deny this.
Ron Watkins also says he hasn't been an administrator at 8kun since last year.
The US Federal Police, the FBI, said last year that they were observing QAnon as one of several potentially dangerous fringe right-wing groups.
The movement also has supporters in Germany.
mbö / AFP / AP
